


Close the Door, Dim the Lights, Blow out the Candles

by tofty



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-16
Updated: 2006-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-15 09:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofty/pseuds/tofty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven years of birthdays, seven drabbles, seven hundred words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close the Door, Dim the Lights, Blow out the Candles

**Author's Note:**

> _"Isn't seven the most powerfully magical number?" -- Tom Riddle_

1.  
The Dursleys are all around him, of course, but Harry's alone really--right now, it feels as though Harry's the only one awake in the whole world, and definitely the only person thinking about his birthday. There's a kind of freedom in knowing this: when there's no chance that you're getting your wish, you can wish for anything at all. So as Harry lies on the floor, chilled to the bone, counting the seconds to 31 July, he wishes for nothing less than a whole new life, payable in full on the stroke of midnight.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

 

2.  
The garden shears are almost as big as he is, the hedge tall enough that Harry can't easily clip it. Harry's got a little step stool on his side, though, and he wins the struggle against the hedge with its help, working methodically, without pleasure. And today especially, he feels as though the last year of his life has been an incredibly weird dream or a school pantomime, very far away, and he clips, and he finds that despite the friendless, letterless summer, he wishes it back again. He wants that life. Whether his friends keep their promises or not.

 

3.  
Harry can recognize the constellations now. He can fly. He can make things float. There are times that he feels as though he could live to be as old as Dumbledore and never learn enough, but his birthday wish tonight (as he takes his broom kit apart and puts it together, over and over) is for everything to be just this good, always, with everyone just within reach, just on the edge of a long summer and ready to start a new, excellent year.

The sneakoscope whirrs gently when he points it at Dudley's room, and Harry laughs carefully, silently.

 

4.  
A birthday where you can dip your hand over the side of your bed and grab a handful of chocolate gateau, that sounds more like Ron's fondest wish than his, though it's pretty good. This is better, though. The silvery full moon, Sirius, his face exhausted and not-quite-happy smiling at him as they planned a life together. And then things happened, things changed, but the memory of their talk, that night, is better than cake, than Quidditch. Not even the rest of that night-gone-wrong can shake Harry's hopes for home, and not even a dementor could spell Sirius's face away.

 

5.  
Down at the park, Harry sits on his favorite swing, the one with two grooves just the width of his feet in the dust, and watches Dudley and wishes he had somebody to kick, wishes he hadn't thrown out all that candy, wishes for everyone to stop keeping secrets from him and to stop poking at his own secrets, wishes most of all that he hadn't learned the lessons that sometimes it's harder to be connected than to be isolated, and that one terrible thing about counting on people is that you give them the power to let you down.

 

6.  
As first birthday parties go, it's not an unqualified success--trust Remus to be a quiet buzz-killer--but anyway, Harry thinks that first birthday parties are wasted on babies, who won't remember properly how important it was to everyone to mark the occasion. Maybe he's a buzz-killer his own self, though, because when Mrs Weasley puts the cake in front of him, sixteen candles and everyone singing, the only thing Harry can think of isn't a wish at all, but kind of a dream, a house on a wide-open field with Sirius inside, alive, waiting for him to come home.

 

7.  
This should be one of the bad birthdays; he, Hermione, and Ron are sifting through the ruins of Godric's Hollow, stripey sunlight through the holes in the roof, so much damage. It's been a mostly terrible year. But. After years of owl-order cakes and long-distance happy returns, Harry wonders why it's taken him this long to understand that if there are people who honestly want you happy and safe, you're pretty lucky, and he realizes that it's not such a terrible birthday after all.

He doesn't explain to Hermione why he hugs her so tightly, but she hugs him back anyway.


End file.
